


Ad Astra

by Blue_Skidoo



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: F/F, UST, Unresolved Romantic Tension, but it's still gay don't even sweat it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 10:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12555684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Skidoo/pseuds/Blue_Skidoo
Summary: A shooting star, a wish, and a heart that believes.





	Ad Astra

During the day the fields around Luna Nova were normally host to packs of roaming students, witches practicing flight, and the faeries who worked at the school, but now underneath the waning moon it was deserted and quiet. With Luna Nova being so far from town, and really any man-made light at all, the sky was alive with stars, the autumn constellations bright and shining.

If it had been entirely up to Croix the two of them would be in the library, but Chariot wasn’t one to sit still and had despaired at the thought of another night spent hunkered over books. Croix didn’t need much in way of convincing to sneak out of the dorms, not when her friend had turned the most pleading, puppy-dog eyes on her, though the school prodigy did bring classwork she had been meaning to catch up on.

Unbothered by the crisp night air, Chariot had already done away with her school vest and was rolling the sleeves of her white dress shirt up to her elbows. Revealing, Croix was helpless to notice, forearms that had become remarkedly toned in the past year during their search for the Seven Words. Chariot raised an arm straight overhead, bent it so her hand rested square between her shoulders, then reached over with her other arm to grasp her elbow and pushed down to stretch her arms out. The motion strained Chariot’s triceps against the already tight sleeves of her shirt and Croix buried her nose back in her book, suddenly indifferent to the cold.

After finishing her stretches Chariot mounted her broom, ascending into the air to fly a few laps around the lawn, never straying too far from where Croix had settled down to read. Gradually her flying became more complex; performing the kind of tight maneuvers that would have had Professor Nelson simultaneously both applauding her technique and chewing her out for recklessness.

 Croix’s heart rate may have spiked somewhat on each perilous dive her friend would take, evening back down as Chariot pulled out of the pitch to roll with her broom, but her worry was eclipsed by that simple wonderment only Chariot seemed to inspire in her. She had seen the younger witch fall off her broom more than anyone and knew how hard she had to work just to stay airborne. But still - watching Chariot fly was like remembering why flying was, well, so much fun to begin with.  

“Oh Croix look, a shooting star! Make a wish!”

Croix started, acutely aware that she had not, in fact, been paying attention to her work for some time and had been wholly distracted by Chariot’s acrobatics. Luckily, Chariot hadn’t seemed to notice, and was descending back down to earth, pointing up at the night sky. Croix just managed to catch sight of a streak of light above.

“You know, a shooting star is the visible path of a meteor entering the atmosphere,” Croix said, “but regardless, they don’t have any intrinsic magic to them, nor the ability to grant wishes.”

“Yeah well, I’m still making my wish,” Chariot sat sidesaddle on her broom, hovering a little above Croix. “And don’t even think about asking me what I’m wishing for!”

“I don’t exactly need to,” Croix said, “I already know what your dream is.”

Thinking of Chariot’s declarations in the Forest of Arcturus brought a familiar sting of rejection for Croix, but such feelings were easier to push down when the girl in question remained at her side, beaming down at Croix from her broom.

“Wishes and dreams are two completely different things!” Chariot’s expression screwed up in determined focus as she shakily rose to her feet, balancing on the staff of her airborne broom. After establishing a stable footing she removed her wand from its holster and winked at her friend.

“A dream is something you share with the world,” Chariot flourished carefully for emphasis, sparks whizzing from her extended wand to flitter to the ground. Magic for children, their professors would say. Once, Croix might have been inclined to agree. But here, bewitched by the lights dancing off Chariot’s eyes, she couldn’t recall exactly why that was.

“A wish is just for you.”

“So then,” Croix closed her book, resigned to not getting any reading done tonight, “What was your wish?”

 "I can’t tell you that!” Chariot exclaimed, jumping from her broom to flop down hard beside Croix, who winced for the poor fate of Chariot’s once-clean uniform, “if you say a wish out loud, it won’t come true!”  

“Wishes have rules now?” Croix reached down to pluck wayward sprigs from her friend’s hair. Chariot snorted as if to say ‘Of course, silly!’, then scooted closer to rest the back of her head against Croix’s thigh.

Shaking her head in fond exasperation, Croix busied herself with smoothing Chariot’s wild hair. The red haired witch hummed in pleased approval, tipping back into Croix’s touch. Croix found herself indulging like this more frequently; cataloguing Chariot’s small sounds and shy glances. Croix was nothing if not studious, and the challenge of learning to read the underclassman wasn’t that different from, say, cross-referencing Professor Badcock’s lessons in Advanced Evocations against her own (independant, of course) previous field study for discrepancies, or locating a misshelved book in the library that was the perfect reference for building her thesis.

That was it - like cracking open a good book. An academic thrill. Chariot craned her head back, eyes wide and bright. Her button up had managed to become even more disheveled, collar pulled askew, revealing the dip down to the soft notch in her throat. Croix’s fingers trembled as she pushed an errant lock of hair behind Chariot’s ear, the side of Croix’s thumb lingering just a moment too long, trailing along to the hinge of her jaw before retreating.  

Purely academic.

If Chariot thought anything of the gesture, she didn’t pull away and for that Croix was grateful. She let her hand curl into the space between Chariot’s unruly shirt collar and the soft skin of her neck, the younger witch’s heartbeat steady beside her knuckles. A comfortable silence settled over them, in this brief respite from destiny or obligation they had made for themselves.

"I’ll tell you my wish,” Chariot whispered, rolling over to hide her face in the fabric of Croix’s skirt, “when we’ve unlocked the seventh word, and regain the world-changing magic, together - I’ll tell you then.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” and Croix, starstruck, had meant it.

  


* * *

  

After the missile, after the world-changing magic, after the unlocking of the Grand Triskelion, after ten years of silence, there is this:

Croix stood side by side with Chariot, overlooking the Forest of Arcturus and the explosion of raw magic that hung in the air over them.

“That’s it, then,” Chariot, radiant, kept her eyes on the horizon, “Akko did it, Croix.”

There were, Croix thought, many things she could have said or done. There were things she wanted to ask Chariot, who was once the brightest star in her sky. She had spent so long away looking to her now was like staring at the sun.

“What was -” Croix faltered, tongue thick in her mouth as she drank in the way Chariot turned towards her, outlined in Yggdrasil’s green light. A small but decidedly petty part of Croix noted Professor Woodward was mercifully absent, leaving the old witch’s once-chosen and twice-passed-over alone. “...Your wish. Did it come true?”

“My what?” Chariot’s eyebrows knotted together, and she blinked - three times in rapid succession - and that was a look Croix was well familiar with; late nights spent pouring over ancient tomes in search of the Seven Words. Confused, but determined to puzzle things out. Like she had just missed something important, and if she barrelled on through the answer would appear.

“It… it was a long time ago,” Croix stammered, somehow more vulnerable now than when the greater bulk of the last ten years worth of research and planning ended with a very near nuclear crisis, “I don’t know if you remember it, but you said - after we… after the seventh word was unlocked, you’d,” Croix took in a shaky breath and gripped at the railing, knuckles gone white, “You’d tell me what your wish is. Was? Well.”

Chariot blinked again, catching up. She captured one of Croix’s hands in her own, gently entwining their fingers to pull the taller witch close. “I remember,” Chariot said, “I’m… surprised you did, too.”

“I had forgotten, until now”, Croix, unable to look up from their joined hands, wanted to lay her heart bare, to be put to the blade of Chariot’s mercy, to throw herself on the stake and burn, “I couldn’t remember why it was important to me. I couldn’t,” she choked back a sob; Chariot’s grip on her hand tightened, “I couldn’t remember why you were important to me.”

She had meant to say more, but Chariot seized the elbow of her free arm and closed the distance between them. How had Croix thought Ursula cowardly, when the same woman leaned in to rest the curve of her forehead in the crook of Croix’s neck, lips so close to her thundering pulse? After only a moment of hesitation Croix wrapped her arms around her old friend’s shoulders and buried her face in Chariot’s hair, finally.

“To answer your question - about my wish. It hasn’t come true. Not yet, anyway,” Chariot said, the press of her smile blooming across Croix’s collarbone, “but I’ve always had a believing heart.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I hope y'all enjoyed it! Comments are always appreciated but really I'm just happy if people get any of them good ol' feels from this.
> 
> I'd like to write more for Charoit/Croix, they are *clenches fist* so good, so gay.


End file.
